MID FOG AND ICE
A year had passed since David Downes lay grieving in the hospital
over the great chance he had let slip to help mend the fortunes of
Captain Bracewell and Margaret. The cadet no longer dreamed of giving
up his life's work on the sea. He had sailed twelve voyages in the
_Roanoke_, which every month ploughed her stately way across the
Atlantic and return, through six thousand miles of hazards. Cadets had
come and gone. Few of them who sought to make their careers in this
way had the grit and patience to endure the machine-like routine in
which advancement lay years and years ahead. But David had begun to
understand the meaning of this slow process by which his mind was being
taught to act with sure judgment, and he saw how very much there was to
learn and suffer before a man could win the mastery of the sea.
Because he was strong, quick, and obedient, the navigating officers
took a genuine interest in his welfare. They had begun to teach him
the uses of their instruments and books. He knew the language of the
fluttering signal flags by day and the sputtering Coston lights and
winking lamps by night. The taffrail log and the Thompson sounding
machine were no longer blind mysteries, and much of his leisure was
spent in the chart room. The bos'n taught him what few tricks of
old-fashioned seamanship were left to learn in a vessel whose spars
were no more than cargo derricks. The cadet had begun to know the
liner, the vast and intricate organization, whose ever-throbbing life
extended through eight stories that were like so many hotels, machine
shops, and factories. And he realized what it must mean to be that calm
and ever-ready man in the captain's cabin, whose mind was in touch with
every one of these myriad activities by night and day.
Meanwhile David had become more and more fond of and intimate with his
sea waifs of the _Pilgrim_. Every time the _Roanoke_ wove her way back
to New York, like a giant shuttle plying over a vast blue carpet,
the cadet was with Margaret and her grandfather as often as he was
allowed ashore. Captain Bracewell had not found the ship for which he
yearned, but his former owners had given him a berth as stevedore on
their wharf, and in faithful drudgery he earned a living and a home for
Margaret.
He had never become his old self again. He was like one of the splendid
square-rigged ships which had been degraded to spend its last days as
a coal barge. But he had learned to keep his sorrows and regrets to
himself, and, gray-haired hero that he was, lived and toiled for the
"little girl," who was the one anchor to hold him from drifting on the
lee shore of a broken and useless old age.
David Downes had grown very close to the ship-master's heart. His
young strength and his hope and pride in his calling were like a fresh
sea-breeze. Nor did anything have quite as much power to kindle Captain
Bracewell's emotions as David's confidence that somehow and some day
the message would come that a master was needed on the quarter-deck of
some fine deep-water sailing ship. Even the bos'n of the _Roanoke_, to
whom David had told his dreams, took a lively interest in the matter
and went so far as to declare:
"The very first Christmas what I makes my fortunes I vill put a
four-masted Yankee ship in your stockings, boy, mit stores and crew
ready for sea, and this granddaddy of yours walkin' up and down the
poop, so?"
When the _Roanoke_ was ordered into dry-dock at Southampton, at the end
of David's first year in her, she missed a voyage and the cadet had
to be content with letters from his friends in New York. In the first
packet of mail was a surprising lot of news from Margaret, which read
as follows:
DEAR BROTHER DAVY:
It is awful lonesome without you for seven whole weeks.
Grandfather misses you more than he thinks he lets me see, and
he is almost as fidgety as when we landed from the dear old
_Pilgrim_. Mr. Becket is in port and is the cheerfulest of us
all though he ought to be the saddest. After being chief officer
in that coastwise steamer for three years, he was silly enough
to play a joke on his skipper in Charleston last week. And, of
course, the old man found it out. Mr. Becket is a perfect dear,
but he hasn't much sense when he gets one of his fits of the
do-funnies. The captain was in a barber shop ashore, getting his
whiskers cut off for the summer season. And Mr. Becket paid two
hackmen to walk in as if they just happened there, and begin to
talk to each other about the fire on the wharves. Of course, the
captain pricked up his ears, and then one of the men said:
"They tell me it blazed up just like an explosion and is right
smack alongside the _Chesapeake_."
That was Mr. Becket's steamer, you know. One side of the captain's
whiskers was off and the other wasn't, and he made a jump from the
chair, took one of the hackmen by the neck, shoved him through
the door, and threw him up on the box of his carriage. Then the
captain hopped inside and told the man to drive to the wharf like
fury. Of course, the hackman had not expected to be caught this
way, but he had to go or else the captain would have broken his
neck for him, at least that is what he said he would do.
And when they got to the wharf the captain flew out of the cab and
down to his ship. The deck was full of passengers and they laughed
till they cried, for the captain must have been a _sight_ with
only half his whiskers on. Mr. Becket says they were a fathom
long, but he is a terrible exaggerator, as you know. Then the
captain ran back after the hackman and caught him and scared him
so that he told on Mr. Becket. Wasn't it a shame? Anyhow, he was
a horrid captain to his officers and Mr. Becket says he is going
to wait for the ship you expect to build for grandfather and me.
Write soon and come home as quick as you can to
Your Most Affectionate Little Sister,
MARGARET.
David tore open an envelope that bore the marks of Mr. Becket's
ponderous fist, hoping for more light on this family tragedy. The
luckless mate had no more to say, however, than this:
DEAR DAVY:
Do you need a strong and willing seaman in your gilt-edged packet?
The coasting trade don't agree with my delicate health. I have
left the _Chesapeake_ owing to one of them cruel misunderstandings
that makes a sailor's life as uncertain as the lilies of the
field which are skylarkin' to-day and are cut down and perisheth
to-morrow. It is too painful to bother your tender young feelings
with. Hold on, I don't think I want to ship with you. Your
skipper wears a fine crop of tan whiskers. They would be sure to
fill me with sad and tormentin' memories. All's well, and they
can't keep a good man down. Your shipmate,
ABEL Y. BECKET.
David read the letter to the bos'n, expecting sympathy, but that
hard-hearted mariner laughed boisterously, and said:
"He got vat was comin' to him, the red-headed old sundowner. I know
that Becket man. I wish he shipped as a seaman mit me. I make him yump
mit a rope's end. He, ho, ho!--the old man mit his whiskers carried
away on the port side. I give a month's wages to see him."
David grew a little hot at such callous treatment of a friend in
distress, but could not help smiling as the bos'n trudged off about his
work, wagging his head and muttering:
"Mit his whiskers under jury-rig. The red-headed old sundowner! He _is_
a rascal, is that Becket man!"
"I am going to find out whether this line needs any more junior
officers," sighed David to himself. "It seems as if all my family is
hoodooed about keeping their berths afloat. I wish I was big enough to
spank Mr. Abel Y. Becket."
A few days after this the _Roanoke_ was ready for sea and all hands
resumed their routine duties. The liner slid out into Southampton
Water, and swung up Channel toward the North Sea and Antwerp to pick up
her passengers and cargo for the homeward voyage. Clean and tuned up
after her overhauling, the crack ship of the Black Star Line was fit
for a record run across the Atlantic.
Nor had Captain Thrasher ever felt more pride and confidence in the
power, speed, and seaworthiness of the _Roanoke_ than when he dropped
the Dutch pilot off Flushing a few days later and signalled "full speed
ahead," with Sandy Hook a week away and waiting wives and sweethearts
"hauling on the towline." Nor were any of the passengers who flocked
along the rail in cheerful groups more eager to get home to their own
than the stalwart cadet who tramped the boat deck and watched the
Channel shipping sweep past like a panorama. An older cadet, with whom
David had formed a fast sea friendship, listened with kindly interest
to his hopes and anxiety that all was well with Captain John and
Margaret. In David's thoughts the "little girl" was still the helpless
child of the _Pilgrim_, who needed the constant and protecting care of
a big brother. Margaret was fourteen now, on the threshold of her fair
girlhood, but in her devotion to David there was no sentiment, save
that of a sister's trusting and adoring affection.
Captain Thrasher had come to know these friends of David's through
their occasional visits on board, when the ship was in port, and his
manner toward them was always most cordial. Now and then he unbent a
trifle at sea and asked David if Captain Bracewell had found another
ship. David was not frightened, therefore, when the master of the liner
beckoned him, while passing down from the bridge to supper. The cadet
followed the bulky, resolute figure in blue into the sacred precincts
of the captain's quarters, and stood silent, cap in hand. In his
eyes, Captain Stephen Thrasher was the most enviable man alive, far
outshining presidents and kings.
Perhaps because he had been longer away from his home than usual and
was thinking of his own lads in school, the masterful captain of the
liner addressed David almost as if he were a friend:
"Are you getting on all right, my boy? Do you peg away at your books
off watch?"
"Yes, sir. The chief officer thinks I have a turn for navigation. That
is, sir, he said that whatever once got inside my thick head was pretty
sure to stick there."
Captain Thrasher chuckled, and looked the boy over from head to foot
before he resumed:
"How is that stranded friend of yours, Captain Bracewell and his pretty
granddaughter?"
"They are well, sir, but Mr. Becket has lost his--his--" David bit
his tongue. He had almost said too much. The captain did not know Mr.
Becket from a marline-spike, and his affairs must not be dragged in
unless asked for. But Captain Thrasher showed no interest in whatever
it was that Mr. Becket had lost, and abruptly ended the interview with:
"You will be put on the ship's papers as an able seaman next voyage.
But you will berth with the cadets, understand? Don't thank me. You
have earned promotion. That's all. You are a nuisance. Get out."
David saluted, and his radiant face expressed his thanks which
the captain had forbidden him to put in words. Once on deck, the
new-fledged able seaman danced a shuffle and cracked his heels
together. His wages would be doubled, and he had left one round of
the long ladder behind him. For the next three days he went about
his duties in a kind of blissful trance, but he was none the less
determined to earn another step in promotion hour by hour, one task at
a time, done as well and faithfully as he knew how.
The voyage which had begun so brightly was fated to test the mettle,
not only of David Downes, but of every man of the ship's company.
The fog, which shut down on the third day like a gray curtain, made
navigation a perilous game of hide and seek. Captain Thrasher took
his post on the bridge, to stay there until the fog should clear. Far
down in the clanging engine rooms the chief engineer and his army of
toilers were alert to respond to signals on the instant. The safety of
thousands of lives and millions of property was in their keeping also.
They were like bold and resourceful pygmies among the mighty monsters
of clanging steel which they were ready to tame and check at the call
from above.
Through a long night the _Roanoke_ groped her way over a shrouded sea
on which the fog hung so thick that the ghostly figures on the bridge
could not see the bow of their own ship. It was no better when daylight
wiped the blackness from the fog. The steamer was wrapped in a blind
world in which there was no sound except the bellowing of the automatic
whistle.
David had seen Captain Thrasher pick his sure way through days and
nights of such weather as this, but now the master appeared to be more
cautious and absorbed in his great responsibility than ever before.
Some unusual strain and uneasiness were picking at his nerves, and his
officers were aware of it, but they kept their thoughts to themselves.
Nor would David have guessed the truth so soon had not Captain
Thrasher tossed away a wireless message slip instead of tearing it
up. David caught it as it fluttered past the wheel-house and began to
read without thinking it to be more than a greeting from some passing
vessel. Beneath the figures of latitude and longitude was written:
S.S. _Hanoverian_.
Dense fog clearing. Many large icebergs in sight just to the
northward of us. Most unusual southerly ice drift directly in
west-bound track. If you are in fog advise great caution. Please
repeat warning to any other vessels behind you.
GREENFELT, _Master_.
David let the bit of paper blow overside and slipped into the chart
room to calculate the position of the _Hanoverian_. The chart showed
him that she was a hundred and fifty miles west and considerably to
the southward of the _Roanoke_ when the message was sent. When David
returned to the deck an officer was already making reports of the
temperature of the water, and Captain Thrasher was standing with head
cocked and a hand at his ear, listening, on the chance that the clamor
of the fog-whistle might fling back a telltale echo from some hidden
mountain of ice that lay in ambush.
Before long David was ordered to stand by the wireless operator's room
and fetch to the bridge any messages that might leap from his rattling,
sparking instruments. But the _Roanoke_ was left to work out her fate
alone. Even the _Hanoverian_, having picked up her speed with clearing
weather, had hurried beyond calling distance of the slow-creeping Black
Star liner.
The second night of the fog stole softly around the ship. As the chill
and dripping air changed from pearly gray to starless gloom, the hoarse
and frequent whistle seemed to be appealing for guidance on this
sightless sea. Bridge, deck, and engine room were unceasingly vigilant.
Their first warning of deadly peril came when a blast from the whistle
was hurled back in a volley of echoes from somewhere dead ahead.
Captain Thrasher leaped to the engine-room indicator and signalled full
speed astern, with both screws.
The _Roanoke_ shook herself as if her rivets were pulling out, as the
engines strove to hold her back, but the momentum of the vast bulk
could not be checked on the instant. Then there came a far more violent
shock, a grinding roar, and the sound of rending steel and timber.
Every man on deck was pitched off his feet. The stricken steamer listed
heavily to port and then slowly righted, as the masses of ice dislodged
from the berg by the collision slid off her fore deck.
What Captain Thrasher most dreaded had come to pass. In spite of his
utmost care his ship had crashed into the ice that lay hidden in the
fog and night. But every man of his crew knew that if his ship should
go down, he was ready to go down with her. He stood on his bridge
without sign of alarm or excitement, shouting swift, clean-cut orders.
Before the steamer had ceased to grind against the pale and ghastly
ice that towered above her, the water-tight doors in the scores of
bulkheads were being closed by men who knew their stations in such a
time as this.
Stewards were hastening among the cabin passengers to quiet their
panic. Down in the steerage quarters hundreds of hysterical immigrants
were running to and fro with prayers and screams, but a squad of
hard-fisted seamen soon herded them like sheep and threatened death to
any who should try to force a way to the boat deck. The chief officer
and the carpenters were forward with lanterns, and other men were in
the holds seeking to find how much damage had been done.
The order came from the bridge for the boat crews to stand by, ready to
abandon ship if need be. David took his station as he had been taught
to do in the boat drill of voyage after voyage. It was very hard to
wait in the darkness, but, far more than the cadet knew, his year of
training under the relentless rule of the captain's discipline had been
fitting him for the test.
The decks had begun to slope downward toward the bow. The forward
compartments were filling, and the fate of the _Roanoke_ hung on the
strength of the collision bulkhead just aft of the wound the ice had
made. David heard the chief officer sing out to the bridge:
"She's flooded to the first bulkhead, sir, but I think she will stay
afloat. Will you come and see for yourself? The whole bow of her is
stove in below the water line."
The _Roanoke_ was slowly moving astern to try to go clear of the
iceberg against which the long swells could be heard breaking as on
a rock-bound beach. It seemed an eternity to David before Captain
Thrasher returned to the bridge and shouted to an officer:
"Tell the people below we are in no danger before daylight. Better put
it stronger than that. Tell them we will make port."
Up in the darkness they listened to the frantic cheers that rose from
cabins and steerage, but the passengers had not heard the captain's
grim comment to himself:
"If it comes on to blow, there may be another story to tell."
When daylight came the liner made an astonishing sea picture. The fog
had lifted a little and the sombre sea was visible for a few lengths
away. The steamer's bow was gone. In its place was a jagged cavern of
twisted, crumpled steel, into which the waves washed and broke with
the sound of distant thunder. The captain dared risk no more pressure
against his straining bulkhead which kept the vessel afloat, and the
_Roanoke_ lay motionless, while all hands that could be mustered for
the work were bracing the inside of the bulkhead with timbers and piles
of heavy cargo. There could be no driving the ship ahead against the
tremendous weight of the sea until this task was done.
The barometer had risen overnight and the liner's chances were slightly
more hopeful. Her wireless instrument was chattering to the world
beyond the sky line that she was in sore straits, but if any steamers
passed within unseen hailing distance they were not equipped to talk
through the air. The _Roanoke_ was left to make the best of her plight.
David Downes had little thought for the fears of the passengers. His
confidence in Captain Thrasher was supreme, and he knew that if it
should come to the worst, the boats would be got away with orderly
promptness. As for the crew, David hoped there might be room for him,
and there was a lump in his throat and his breath seemed choked when he
thought of being left to struggle and drown, but he felt himself to be
a full-fledged American seaman, and he was proud of it. Whatever fate
might befall Captain Thrasher was good enough for him.
David was musing in this fashion as he hastened with urgent orders
between the fore-hold and the bridge. On one of these trips he found
the captain and the senior second officer poring over one of the yellow
sheets on which the wireless messages were written.
"Some vessel is within helping distance," thought David, with a thrill
of joy, and lingered, hoping to hear the good news.
Presently the captain went to his room, and the officer, taking pity on
the youngster's open curiosity, confided:
"Here _is_ a pretty kettle of fish. Those people are asking us to come
to _their_ assistance. That's the way it goes. Disasters always run
in twos and threes. We can't make head or tail of the message except
'_Help_' and '_No hope of gaining control._' It sounds like fire, to
me."